Carlo Ancelotti has had enough of watching Italian football drift. Speaking to Il Giornale, the Brazil coach laid out exactly what he thinks has gone wrong — and it's not just tactics.
"The fundamental difference is the pace," he said. "Not just the physical running, but the mental pace, the constant involvement, the intensity — which is not an empty word and cannot be applied only in certain phases of the match. Italian football has lost exactly that."
Hard to argue. The Azzurri have now missed World Cup qualification three consecutive times. No Serie A club will feature in a European semi-final this season. Atalanta, the league's most energetic side, went out to Bayern. Inter and Juventus fell in the Champions League knockout playoffs. Napoli didn't even make it out of the league phase.
The talent pipeline has dried up
Ancelotti's diagnosis goes deeper than just results. He points to the disappearance of elite foreign players from Serie A — the kind who used to raise the ceiling for everyone around them.
"The great foreign players no longer come to Italy," he said. "So in Serie A, there are no longer internationally outstanding players like Falcao, Maradona, Platini, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho and all the others from a distant era. Who do young Italian players learn from?"
It's a real question. TV rights and investor money have made the Premier League, La Liga, and even the Bundesliga far more attractive destinations. Serie A is no longer where ambition lands. And when the best players stop arriving, the development of domestic talent stalls alongside them.
Como gets a specific mention — not as a success story, but as a missed opportunity. "I don't see many Italian players there," Ancelotti noted. An exciting project built largely on foreign talent doesn't do much for the national team pipeline.
Defenders wanted — urgently
The tactical critique is where Ancelotti gets most pointed. Italy built generations of success on defensive structure and mentality. That identity, he argues, has been quietly abandoned in pursuit of something more modern — and the results speak for themselves.
"Either we recover defenders, or rather the defensive mentality that has brought us club and national team success, or we will continue to suffer," he said. "Football is not only about scoring more goals than your opponent, but also about conceding fewer."
That's not nostalgia talking. Serie A's defensive fragility is a genuine liability in European competition — and for anyone pricing up Italian clubs in continental markets, it's been a consistent red flag. Atalanta's aggressive, high-risk pressing can produce brilliant football, but it also leaves them exposed. Just watch the Bayern match, as Ancelotti suggests.
José Mourinho's Inter were the last Italian side to win the Champions League. That was 2010. Fifteen years of underperformance, and counting.
